In 1975, the date on the city flag was changed from 1664, when the British arrived, to 1625, to commemorate the Dutch settlement.

But didn’t the Dutch settle what is now New York City in 1624? Didn’t they “buy” Manhattan Island in 1626?

To complicate matters more, a new book being published in August, “Concrete Reveries,” by the philosopher Mark Kingwell, says the city was founded in 1623.

If nothing else, the debate may have temporarily revived an interest in the past in a city that is typically more concerned about the present and, to a lesser degree, about the future. As New York veers toward a celebration next year of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s arrival, Michael Miscione, the Manhattan borough historian, has invited a number of experts to join in a collegial discussion to determine which date is correct.

Joep de Koning of Tolerancepark.org made the case for the later date: “New York City was established in 1625, not by incidental activity, but by deliberate decision of a governing council … Because no permanent settlement had as yet been selected in 1624 for New Netherland’s capitol, Fort Amsterdam, the date of 1624 cannot be used as the birth date of New York City except as the birth date of New York State or the Province of New Netherland.”

That drew a retort from Kenneth T. Jackson of Columbia University: “I believe an equally good argument could be made for 1624 because Governors Island is as much a part of N.Y.C. as Manhattan and is only a few hundred yards south of the Battery, a distance even I could swim.”

Mr. Jackson went on to say:

Certainly no one knows the ins and outs of Dutch government and settlement in New Netherland better than Joep, and I am surely not qualified to debate him. I am willing to accept his definition of 1625 if only because we have to choose some date and because there is ample justification for 1625. But Joep tends to put things in terms of Dutch law, as if settlements in history always date from legislation or fiat. Why should the English or the Indians or the French be so concerned about Dutch law? …

… My argument is simple. European settlement in North America was by definition illegal, and high minded pronouncements from Amsterdam can never change that basic fact. The Indians were essentially destroyed by the Dutch so let us not spend so much time worrying about how the Dutch justified their self-serving actions. We should instead ignore legal pronouncements and focus on what happened in the real world. In 1613, the Dutch remained only a few months; in 1624 some of them remained permanently and then simply shifted their operations to another place that also happened to be in what we now call N.Y.C. Dutch intentions are not always the point; their actions should merit our attention also.

I admire what the Dutch accomplished in the new world as much as Joep does and think that New York has much to teach the world about toleration and living together in peace. But we do not help the cause by overstating the case or by focusing on issues as trivial as whether to focus on 1624, 1625, or 1626. None of those dates are ever going to impress the Indians, other Europeans, South and Central Americans, or Asians.

From my perspective, the real issue is that most Americans, and perhaps even most New Yorkers, have no idea that the Dutch had anything at all to do with early American history. If we argue about the small stuff, the larger story will never be known.

Mr. de Koning replied:

Upon birth one is usually given a name. If one changes his/her name later, one’s date of birth, one’s birthplace and one’s character are not changed. One’s innate personality – in spite of carrying another name and perhaps facing new external challenges – may blossom and flourish in the same way that great persons already had the seeds of greatness often at birth– in their DNA.

The name “Amsterdam” was given in 1625 upon the birth of the fort on Manhattan Island in 1625. The birth of the “Province New Netherland” – which gave the New York tri-state region its specific [legal-cultural] DNA – occurred on Governors Island in 1624. These events, forever, distinguished the New York Tri-State culture from the neighboring cultures of Virginia and New England.

Jackson again:

A perfect metaphor. A birth is a physical fact and has nothing to do with whether or not someone or some government gives a name to a place, a cat, or a person. So Fort Amsterdam got a name in 1625. But in 1624 a group of people landed on Governors Island and decided to stay, shifting their residence the next year a couple of hundred yards to the north. After having traversed the Atlantic Ocean with all of its perils, I doubt those seafaring people would have regarded the distance from Governors Island to the Battery to be much of a trip. A birth is a physical fact and has nothing to do with whether or not someone or some government gives a name to a place, a cat, or a person.

The debate does not end there. At one point, Michael Miscione, Manhattan borough historian, interjected, “As the one who prompted this controversy — I mentioned to Sam Roberts that the date on the seal/flag was in dispute while he was working on another story — I want to say that I am thrilled by the robust and thought-provoking e-discussion that has taken place here and elsewhere.”

He said other historians have been debating the matter elsewhere — some arguing against both dates — and that perhaps a public debate would be a good idea: “Since I consider my primary role as borough historian to be a New York City history booster, it breaks my heart that this lively discussion is taking place privately, and not out where the public could enjoy it.”

A public debate a great idea! We can make it a ballot issue next election. After all, New Yorkers are so well informed. And what we don’t know, I’m sure our teachers on talk radio are willing to help us with.

I’ve worked in archaeology in public review, though how public has still proving difficult to accomplish, once proposed to be on record in any public library in NYC. In my research on the last remaining parking lot in the South Street Seaport Historic District, I was somewhat inconveninced when the Main Reading Room was closed for the Rose family renovation. I used the city histories at the Huntington Free Library on Westchester Square in the Bronx, the former ethnology collection of the Heye Foundation since incorporated into the Museum of the American Indian, in part at the Customs House building next to Battery Park and in Washington, D.C., where the Bronx cast and assembled Civil War Capitol Dome is. Nearby was the since “decommissioned” “New York Unearthed” city archaeology museum space near where Herman Melville wrote “Moby-Dick” in the vicinity of 17 State Street.

One of the longest serving mayors William Beekman was concerned with the “road to Harlem” which he seemed preoccupied with. He also maintained a lane from the dockside to the Commons for many years while the early street grid was built. The Commons became the location of the later City Hall, and the location of human remains I’ve also worked on.

I recall that the actual clearing that was done gets overlooked in the argument of dates. I read that French- speaking Walloons, cited from near the Ardenne forest, and also built the fort. Where later the English would do business in New Amsterdam, the Allerton Warehouse, (Puritan Isaac Allerton is buried next to Yale U. in New Haven, CT.) his agent, Thomas Hall, who escaped from indentured servitude in the Virginia colony, was to whom the land was “sold” (or passed on to) by Marshal Philip du Treaux or as the Dutch called him “du Troy” its
written. Nearby were the “old shipwreck” and the first ferry to Brooklyn. Interestingly, some early English settlements have been found to have been on earlier “unknown” French ones.

All these years I just figured that the date had been changed from 1664 to 1625 to give people a chance to have a centennial celebration twice every century instead of only once. With that in mind, perhaps we can change it to 1613 now and celebrate our quadcentennial (sp?) that year, then to 1624 and celebrate again, then back to 1625 and celebrate again, then to 1626 …

Actually, about a year ago I went past the Bronx Court House on a bus, and they were still flying a tattered flag with the 1664 date. That’s the one I remember from my childhood, so that’s the year I always think of.

Kim San’s comment reminds me of what my grandfather would say if I mentioned that there “used to be” a certain store on a certain block. Gramps would say, “Used to be? There ‘used to be’ Indians here.”

Perhaps the genocide to which Kim San refers, however challenging the formulation of the comment, is the virtual genocide of the ‘native Americans’ whose home was this land before the Dutch disembarked on Governor’s Island, moved to Manhattan, etc., etc.

Debating whether New York was “founded” in 1623 or 1624 or 1625 ignores that there had been human beings living in these parts for a long time before then; the debate by ignoring those people is a further perpetration of the genocide, a perpetuation of the genocide.

Interesting debate. A similar debate could be mounted about the founding of Seattle – the initial settlement was on Alki Point in 1851, under the name of “New York Alki” (“Alki” meant “by and by” in the dialect of the local natives, the Duwamish tribe). The settlement was relocated in 1852 to the present site of downtown Seattle, and renamed after Chief Sealth, a Tyee (or “big man”) of the Duwamish.

Most historians date the founding of Seattle back to 1851, even though a site by that name was not actually occupied until 1852.

Needless to say, the Native Americans were treated no less ingloriously than those in Manhatten and surrounding areas and were soon hustled off of land they’d occupied for centuries. Diseases brought by whites cut their populations by three-fourths or more.

Historical facts support the year1624 as the date of birth of New York State and the date on which the New York Tri-State region (then named New Netherland) ceased to be a territory for private traders under patents issued by the States General (i.e., the Parliament of the Dutch Republic) and where the law of the ship no longer sufficed in matters of justice (Legislative Resolutions No. 5476 and No. 2708).

The year 1624 was the year in which the territory was transformed thus to a provincial legal entity by specifically delivering the laws and ordinances of the Dutch Republic to North American soil. As of that year, the territory was administered as an extension of the Dutch Republic under the sovereignty of the States General by way of the delegated authority of the West India Company.

These laws and ordinances were delivered by the first settlers to Governors Island – the birthplace of New York State – and were responsible for the culture of toleration as the basis for ethnic diversity and for the tradition of inclusiveness in the region. This distinctive regional personality of cultural tolerance is still the identity of what is now called the New York Tri-State region.

At the time, that tolerance was unique to the New Netherland region when compared to its adjoining regions on the east coast of North America. These three regions – Virginia, New Netherland and New England – metamorphosed ultimately into the Original Thirteen.

The vibrant precept of tolerance – together with its complementary more inert partner of liberty – thus became the foundation of what now denotes the conception of American freedom. It is America’s ultimate virtue of tolerance which therefore is responsible for defending and defining American freedom dynamically.

The following year, in 1625, NY City’s birth date was founded by the deliberate decision of a governing council – seated [in a fort] on Governors Island – which selected Manhattan Island as the permanent, principal place of settlement as well as for the construction of Fort Amsterdam as the capitol of New Netherland. Cryn Fredericxsz – surveyor and fortification engineer – had disembarked on Governors Island in 1625 with specific instructions to build the fort that was to be named “Amsterdam.” In addition, he was to build the civic houses necessary for the settlers and to lay out the farms outside of Fort Amsterdam in which and around of which they settled in 1625. That village named New Amsterdam grew subsequently into a town and city with its own municipal rights in 1653.

Hence, the year 1625 was the year in which the fort and the village of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island came into being. The name was [provisionally] changed in June 1665 to the City of New York upon re-incorporation under English law.

Yet, the town’s original 1625 personality never changed materially – not with the granting of municipal rights in 1653, not even with the change of sovereignty to English jurisdiction in 1664 provisionally and in 1674 definitively, or upon the realizing of the Original Thirteen as an independent nation.

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